Black folk could fly Selected writings

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This sublime posthumous collection of essays from novelist Kenan (A Visitation of Spirits), who died in 2020, offers a moving take on the things that inspired his work, largely Southern culture. Early essays immerse the reader in Kenan's childhood in Chinquapin, N.C. In "Notes Toward an Essay on Imagining Thomas Jefferson Watching a Performance of the Musical Hamilton," Kenan argues that "Southernness is inextricably bound to Blackness," and that "food was the only province in which the African American contribution has not been thoroughly muted." Elsewhere, he touches on the intersection of pop culture and politics--in "The Many Lives of Eartha Kitt," Kenan praises Kitt for standing up for her convictions during a White House visit, during which she reportedly made Lady Bird Johnson cry with her direct line of questioning about the Vietnam War. "Letter from North Carolina," meanwhile, is a particularly moving piece about removing Confederate monuments, including Silent Sam, a statue that stood outside the University of North Carolina campus until it was toppled by protesters in 2018. The pieces add up to a rich and rewarding testament to Kenan's curiosity and candor. Fans and new readers alike will appreciate this opportunity to take in Kenan's remarkable talent. (Aug.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

With Animal Joy, poet/psychoanalyst Alsadir, a National Book Critics Circle finalist for the collection Fourth Person Singular, gets serious about studying the importance of laughter (30,000-copy first printing). Long-listed for the National Book Award and a Granta Best of Young American Novelists, Ball was inspired by French writer/artist Édouard Levé's memoir (written at age 39) to offer his own frank Autoportrait in his 39th year. In 1920s Paris, Kiki de Montparnasse was a model, muse, and friend to cultural greats and an artist, cabaret star, and driving force in her own right, as Braude (The Invisible Emperor) highlights in Kiki Man Ray. With Eliot After "The Waste Land," award-winning scholar/poet Crawford follows up his highly regarded Young Eliot (10,000-copy first printing). Standing as both memoir and memorial, Black Folk Could Fly is a first selection of personal nonfiction from the late author/mentor Kenan, whose award-winning works powerfully communicate his experience of being Black, gay, and Southern. Lowell's Memoirs collects the complete autobiographical prose of the great poet, including unpublished early work (10,000-copy first printing). What is home but A Place in the World, and Tuscany celebrant Mayes's new book explores what home really means in all its variations. As Morris explains in her first book of nonfiction, she came to the writing career launched with the multi-million-copy best-selling The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Listening Well (50,000-copy first printing). Composer of the Tony-nominated musical Once Upon a Mattress, author of the novel Freaky Friday and the follow-up screenplay, and chair of the Juilliard School, Rodgers has a lot more to discuss in Shy than being the daughter of Richard Rodgers (25,000-copy first printing). Addressed to Wohl's brother Bobby, who died in 1965, As It Turns Out reconstructs the life of their sister, the iconic actress/model Edie Sedgwick made famous by Andy Warhol (30,000-copy first printing).

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Stirring, deeply thought-through essays and letters on topics ranging from sexuality and racism to foodways and the sense of place. "You were born rich in identity--Black, Southern, Queer. Don't ever let anybody tell you any bit of it is a burden." So writes Kenan (1963-2020), author of If I Had Two Wings, in a letter to his younger self, imparting lessons born of decades of self-awareness. The author knows all too well the oppression and indignities borne by Black people in America. As a bookish boy in the sports-obsessed South with a dawning awareness of his sexual identity, he knew early on that his future lay elsewhere. Consequently, he moved to New York to work in publishing and academia. Yet, this anthology makes clear that he never forgot his home, and he would return south to teach English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina. He writes with an exquisitely tuned ear about the blues, the folk music of the oppressed. In a long essay on racism that merits a place on high school and college required reading lists henceforth, he recounts injuries large and small: being singled out as the only Black person at a college frat party, being rousted by the police for no reason. For all that, he writes, he never felt ashamed of being Black. Even as Kenan asserts that the color of the future will be a rainbow, not Black or White, he writes with deep intelligence and a discerning palate about the one thing that perhaps shapes Southern Black culture most definitively: its food, picked fresh from overflowing gardens, cooked to perfection, and served up on groaning boards to enjoy in good company. "Mama's ingenuity and resolve and green thumb made us wealthy when it came to nourishment….As boy, I took all the work and time and energy to accomplish all this bounty for granted; now I look back in wonder," he writes. Tayari Jones provides the introduction. A superb introduction to a writer deserving much greater recognition. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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